Solutions that don’t break the bank, reinvent the wheel or marginalize our teachers are within our grasp. We could have rigorous classes, safe and disciplined schools and treat teachers like valued colleagues rather than easily replaceable cogs, and we could do so tomorrow if we wanted. Disclaimer, this is an opinion and commentary site and should not be confused as a news site. Also know that quite often people may disagree with the opinions posted.

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Monday, March 10, 2014

Will Weatherford uses children as pawns in his voucher game.

I didn’t pick up on it. I figured his
expansion of vouchers to middle class families was just another step in his
goals to provide welfare for the well off and have every kid get a voucher
effectively destroying public education.

I didn’t pick up on it by Julie Delagal in Florida Today did. She wrote: Florida
Senate President Don Gaetz appears to have finally heard the drumbeat from
parents and educators. In the face of yet another expansion of the voucher
program, he has asked not just about how families like the program, but how
well their children are doing academically.

Apples-to-apples accountability is a good idea, particularly when
Weatherford is peddling an expansion of vouchers. He wants to increase the
corporate tax credit pot by another $30 million, add sales taxes to the mix,
raise income levels for eligibility and offer partial vouchers for middle-class
kids.

And that’s why private schools won’t have to worry. If they get an influx of
middle-class pupils, studies show, criterion-referenced test scores for voucher
students will rise.

This is not to say that low-income kids can’t improve. In low-income
“turnaround” public schools in Duval County, they often do. But we all know,
poverty is the primary correlate to poor academic achievement. And so far,
there’s no evidence that putting a poor child in a private school will make
that child perform better academically.

Despite the spin propagated by charter-school proponents through the Florida
Department of Education’s study, we know that when it comes to poor students,
charter schools — another privatization program that uses public dollars —
aren’t producing any better results than public schools.

You see despite Weatherford’s cries he
doesn’t care about children he just wants to destroy public education and this
is just another step one on that road and if he has to use middle class children
to hasten the fall then so be it.